


Timeless (memories shoebox)

by dudewhereismypie



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Not Hunters, Breaking Up & Making Up, Dean is emotionally constipated, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Human Castiel, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-29
Updated: 2015-07-29
Packaged: 2018-04-11 20:12:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4450616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dudewhereismypie/pseuds/dudewhereismypie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean, two steps forward, moved slowly, cautious, as if in front of him stood not a man, once his lover, once his friend, but a wounded wild creature about to flee. Castiel realized that he wasn’t breathing, that the sweat in his palm made the knob slippery and yes, he was wounded but not wild, not ever.</p><p>And that was it, wasn’t it? The reason why it was so simple and so easy to hurt him, the reason Dean never had to raise his voice to make him bleed. Because he was docile, stupidly docile.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Timeless (memories shoebox)

_“Dean... I love you.”_

 

 

 

He can’t remember the sound of his laugh and that’s surprising, unsettling. Because he was used to remember all the things about him, the little perks and annoying ticks, the way he sang along the same songs always breaking in the high notes, and the way he always drove above speed limit just for the wind— because Castiel had him so in deep he never knew where he ended and all that was him started, so deep it changed him in a cellular, molecular level, irretrievable and astonishing; scary nonetheless. And forgetting him seemed terribly as forgetting a part of himself.

But after four years you could say he was getting used to it, to the feeling of a blur fogging something inside him that once was so bright, that made him feel alive. Now he doubts he could even remember his favorite song or book (that's a lie), but remembering or not doesn’t makes a single difference. He doesn't remember too where are all the pictures, all the movie tickets and all the post-its and notes they used to glue over his house, but he likes to think they’re in the blue shoebox, up in the wardrobe and behind his raincoats because that’s where he keeps his most precious memories.

He never went to see if this is true or not because he likes to think he doesn’t remember his face or his smile, not as precisely as he used to. He doesn’t remember also when the last time he cried for him was, but it was long, long ago.

He does remember, however, that nobody came, nobody called, nobody dried his tears besides his pillow and not a single word broke the silence crushing his skull. He remembers the pain seemed unbearable, incurable. But now he looks back and he has to agree, when time passes it hurts less, and less, and less.

Now he knows it’s not that the wounds and bruises can never be cured, but it’s a process so, so slow that seems despicable.

He doesn’t remember the last time he said his name aloud, but he was sure it came with a sob and tears. Because when he left everything in his life was a constant reminder of all he could have and all he lost, and there were nights he was sure the pain swallowing him would drive him crazy.

It wasn’t like that now, not anymore, at least not in the past year. It didn’t felt like an open wound bleeding and growing bigger every living minute, lacerating every flesh on his body. No, now it seemed a quiet pain, something back in his mind, a card that was a part of all the sadness that came with being alive. The passion that once burned desperate and devote, soothed as a quiet love, calm and conformed.

Sometimes he feels so pathetic.

But that was old news for him, considering that he’s the one digging his head to unbury him from the past while pretending to watch TV, not Dean. Never him. Dean would never look back, he would never close his eyes and think about how it felt when he had him on his arms, how he tasted after the cup of coffee, he wouldn’t pray for him to be happy or feel this stupid thing Castiel felt. He wouldn’t.

 

“I love you” and in his fall he finally found the ground.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

His breath came out heavy and the rain rang in his ears, calming his senses with a newborn melancholy, clashing on the windows and fogging its glasses. The TV was the only light in the room, his own excuse to think about things he shouldn’t.

And he tried. He tried to think about his day at work, about the particular taste of his lunch or how Gabriel laughed at his face after dipping his tie on the cup of coffee. He even tried to change channels, and there was something about northern bears that seemed interesting. But nothing. Nothing stayed.

Anyway.

Nowadays he couldn’t see all the shades and traces so precisely. After years he wasn’t sure of how he used to fall asleep, how his eyes fluttered in dreams or how the flecks of green and gold would shine with the first morning glow. But he still could see his shape in his kitchen and the smell of coffee and bacon, he would still remember the chair he used to sit, but his voice from all the good mornings seemed blur and distant, like a sound muffled by cotton balls in his ears.

The phone came alive, a rare thing to happen, and so Castiel now awake from his daydream watched all through the fourth ring before he made a move to get it.

“Hello.”

“Cas, you still alive?” The voice came with a hidden laugh and a cold bucket of surprise washed over his senses. He froze. Without any doubt it was Sam on the other end, that much Castiel was sure, but after all the promises of keeping touch and dozens of months of radio silence he doubted he would ever again hear from him.

“Hi, Sam.” The name rolled heavy and strange in his tongue, carried a bitter taste and Castiel swallowed under his breath because he knew later, when he would be in bed with eyes closed pretending to be asleep, he would think of Dean.

“Hey,” his voice was warm as no time has passed, “how things are going with you?”

“I’m fine,” the line came easy, floating above his nerves and, picking on his tee seam, he thought; _no_ , a long time has passed, _I don’t know you anymore and I don’t know how to talk to you anymore_. “And you?” he breathed, biting his lip.

“Good, I’m good.” He sure sounded good, happy and light and Castiel waited because there was nothing left to say. “It has been a long time.”

“Yes.”

“Do you remember Jess? I was talking with her about it, about us meeting and, you know, catching up.”

Castiel frowned and hung on the silence for just a little longer. “Catching up?”

“Yeah, and…” he could sense the hesitation, as if Sam would be now about to talk something that he didn’t know how; wasn’t sure he could. “And I got a call yesterday...” He paused. “…from Dean.” And suddenly he felt his muscles freeze, his ears acute, his fingers trembling. “He’s coming back to Kansas, said he quit his job and he want to meet us this weekend. He said he wanted you there too.”

The silence stretched in a thin cold line but Castiel never realized for how much longer. His brain worked a thousand miles away and he was sweating cold, rising in fever. Thinking about Dean was a thing, an unhealthy yes, but secure thing— seeing him again was an absurd, completely different thing; a crazy, maddening thing. Dangerous and illogical. After all those years and finally he was on his feet again, after all the time to _get over it_ , _forget him_ , and— no.

He didn’t.

Nothing was over because Dean left with a door open. And nothing was forgotten because Castiel couldn’t close it.

“What?” the word came low, almost breathless in his own ears. “No.”

 

 

“I don’t love you, Cas.” So simple it sounded comical, and if it wasn’t by the shadow in Dean's eyes, Castiel could be laughing. He would smile and wave it off and ask him what a ridiculous thing that was. “I told you from the start, I… I don’t want anything serious, I don’t want to fall in love. I told you, didn’t I?”

“But I— I thought...” He felt the deep frown in his face but it was somehow detached, as if in another plane; a clouded reality that was starting to feel dangerous. And he couldn’t stand to watch Dean anymore. He watched his own hands instead, gripping its own meat as a proof of being awake. He had to make sure he wasn’t asleep, that it wasn’t a torture on his own head. “After so long I thought something had changed.”

“It didn’t,” he said, softly, sounding so sorry it was almost as he was hurt; almost. “I still don’t want to get attached, I don’t think it’s time.” And however gentle he sounded, however soft were his fingers trailing Castiel’s chin just to lift his eyes and watch him again, it was harder than throwing a scream and a punch. Because what Castiel saw on the pools of greens was something too close to pity to not cut him deep. “You understand, right?”

“I swear I don’t.” He smiled, eyes surprisingly dry, and he realized the pain was bigger than any consolation of crying could bring.

 

 

 

But that was a long time ago.

Four years later and no word said again after Dean went home and Castiel closed the door that evening— not even a desperate call from a scared man who just discovered he was madly in love and had made a huge mistake, not even a note from a sorry friend who missed his oh-so-called best friend— four years and not a word when three months later he moved away. After all it was Sam who said Dean was packing his bags to a job two states away.

And when Castiel thought he would never go without saying goodbye he was already gone, not a single call or answer to his messages; just a mention that it was better this way, that it would be easier. The question was, easier for whom? Four years and—

“Cas?” Sam waked him, and Castiel discovered the burn in his eyes, the pain stabbing his throat, and tried to not give anymore, anything away. He was fine, he was okay and it was all a long time ago.

“Sam, I’m sorry,” he blinked, cleared his throat. “I’m not going. I'm really busy this weekend,” _the most absurd lie_. “I can’t. Maybe next time.” _Maybe never with him._

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“You don’t want to know how it went?” Sam asked, trying too hard to not seem like he was paying attention to anything but his coffee. “We’re here for the past two hours and you don’t seem curious.”

“It’s because I am not.” Castiel smiled, much to disguise his urge to roll his eyes. He watched his half eaten piece of chocolate cake with the same disinterest he had when the waitress said he should prove it, but he just didn’t want to be rude. It was maybe the same urge that made him come here in the first place, that made him say yes to Sam and what it was supposed to be an innocent meeting on a Saturday evening.

The café was almost empty now, almost closing, and the nice woman behind the counter was cleaning its glass for the thousand time in the last half hour, humming above the low radio what it seemed the only song she knew.

When Castiel looked back to the couple in front of him, he frowned. The air had obviously changed in the thirty seconds, maybe less, that he looked away. Jess seemed annoyed beyond the borders of what her cup could contain and she glanced at Sam behind it, as if daring him to go on. The taller man however ignored or never noticed it in the first place— he seemed worried, fidgeting with his drink. “That simple?” he asked in small disbelief. “Cas, look… Before that all you two were friends. Very good friends, that is, you two were practically glued and he always said you were his best friend. Are you sure you just want to... throw it away now he’s back? Because of a relationship that didn’t work out?”

“Sam,” and for all that could be moved or not, Castiel felt a laugh bubbling in his mouth, in an absurd event where he was the one who should be defending himself in this whole mess of story. “You know I could live without him loving me back. But he ignored me, completely. You know that too, and if it wasn’t for you I’d never even know he was moving away. He was the first who forgot we were friends, not me.”

And his cup seemed so interesting now, because after all this time he maybe forgot that he was the wrong one for loving when Dean told him he shouldn’t— maybe he was just so hurt that he thought he was right, that his pain made him right. And now having to defend it made him doubt it.

It wasn’t that he blamed Dean for not loving him, not really. It was all subbed in the two years of friendship and no girlfriend or boyfriend in sight, all said when they first kissed, when they first slept and woke together. Because Dean didn’t do relationships, that much he knew since the start.

“But—”

“He’s right, Sam.” Jess interrupted, and when Castiel looked up again she seemed deeply annoyed, twisting her nose and narrowing her eyes to her fiancée. “Stop trying to justify the dick move Dean pulled for whatever he said to you.”

“Jess, he wasn’t lying. I know my brother.” He stated, assured, but just got a shrug of her shoulders in answer, as if she couldn’t care less if it was a lie or not. But now Castiel was far, far beyond it. His mind and his heart ignited in a speed that made him grab the borders of his seat, trying to stead himself.

“What,” he started, praying to not sound too interested, “are you talking about?”

“Nothing.” Sam deflected, glaring at Jess, while she huffed in exasperation, and something seemed to shift once again, because whatever she was about to say came out with a roll of her eyes and nothing else. “He just asked about you, said he missed you.”

“Okay.” It was nothing, _it was nothing_ , Castiel repeated and gulped his drink, breathed deeply. It was nothing and he needed to get over it once for all. He was okay without Dean in his life. He was okay, it was a long time ago, and some day that hole will go away. He didn’t need to know about him and that included not making Dean the topic of his talk. “I found your book, Sam, I think you really forgot in my house...”

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

He was unquiet, nervous, and he _needed_ to calm down. Gabriel wanted to pay him drinks because apparently he also seemed too frustrated but he couldn’t risk getting drunk and doing something crazy. Something crazy like calling Sam, like asking for Dean’s number, like opening the shoebox and crying to the framed pictures and scribed post-its of _pancakes in the oven u can pay me in bed_ and _see you for dinner+movie?_.

He swore to himself he wouldn’t think about whatever Sam meant but he should be used by now of all the promises Dean made him break to himself.

A week after and the couch was the silent tired witness of his excuses at doing what it seemed as natural as breath or blink. A week after and four years seemed squeezed thin in a space of a thump of his heart, and he could see through the holes, through all the holes linking then and now— then when there was a knock in his door he would smile, and now… now he waited, because maybe he didn’t want to know who was on the other side of the wood.

And when he saw him, _him_ , eyes uncertain and feet bordering the room that once saw his bare skin and watched how he kissed and touched, the first time and the last time eight months later— when he saw him, right there, four years seemed a joke.

A bad joke laughing at his broken heart.

And what stung mostly, what pierced him deeply, wasn’t noticing that the scent surrounding his presence hasn’t changed, nor having to stand there while he said nothing and didn’t even looked up for more than three seconds before watching his own feet. What made him doubt the strength of his knees was that he never forgot his smell, that his face was never gone from his mind, and his presence didn’t mean smiles no more.

For the seconds stretched, blood and electricity coming and going pumping his body and forgetting to fuel his mind to any coherency, Castiel didn’t move. On a safe distance from his opium, the salt in his wounds and the dope afterheat, he stared at another hole on the space of then and now. Another four year joke laughing at his face, because it could be a dream, could be a four year long dream and after all he was awake and Dean was there. It was just yesterday Castiel said he loved him, yesterday Dean killed it with the gentleness of a merciful god, and today… today he seemed the same as surely no time has passed, not beyond the twenty four hours that made him knock at his door after bleeding his heart.

Was he asleep all that time?

When Dean’s eyes finally, finally came up with more assurance than fear, Castiel almost could hear the tiny pieces of his heart twisting and breaking and he froze. Suddenly slamming the door at his face seemed a work that this body was no longer able to do.

Dean, two steps forward, moved slowly, cautious, as if in front of him stood not a man, once his lover, once his friend, but a wounded wild creature about to flee. Castiel realized that he wasn’t breathing, that the sweat in his palm made the knob slippery and _yes_ , he was wounded but not wild, not ever. And that was it, wasn’t it? The reason why it was so simple and so easy to hurt him, the reason Dean never had to raise his voice to make him bleed. Because he was docile, stupidly docile.

With the teeth biting his lip, Dean seemed unsure of what to say and right there Castiel also knew that he never forgot how to read him, how he could see the clear hope and a strange shyness— strange for someone who always knew what to say, what to do and win. But after four years what could be said?

“You didn’t came…” he said, the voice drumming something deep in Castiel’s chest, “Sam, Jess, Charlie, all old folks went, and… It was fun, remembering old times.” He babbled, vague, small. Maybe Castiel was grateful he never went to the casual _hi how are you_ , but it was something else of a torture to go there.

“I don’t think it would be fun for me to remember the past.” There was no venom there, not intentionally, but his eyes never stayed to watch what his words did to Dean; he simply couldn’t look at him any longer if he was supposed to talk with composure, if he was supposed to hold himself together.

“Uh…” Dean stuttered, “Sam said it has been months since you two talked.”

“Yes,” his mouth tasted sand, and a lungful after he was still convincing his knees not to tremble. “But I saw him last week, don’t worry about it.”

“Hm…” he trailed, and with the sound of his moves, Castiel saw him rubbing his neck. With a deep sigh he gathered how the ground seemed unreal under his bare feet and how his patience couldn’t bear it anymore. “Can I… Can I come in?” he asked, soft and tiny, and in plain disbelief Castiel looked up in his eyes.

“I thought you were leaving.” And that, yes, was meant to be rude, maybe vaguely hurtful but it was him who got hurt instead, when the flinch on the green eyes showed a hint of desperation. Castiel wasn’t made of whatever Dean was made; whatever people who could hurt others they cared without hurting themselves was made.

“I thought maybe we could talk…?” he sounded like child and it seemed strange how now was Castiel’s turn to hold the reins but it tasted bitter, wrong. And he didn’t want it. Not even for the gap of space and time it would take to Dean turn around and leave and stay gone.

“After four years? I don’t think we have much in common.”

“I think maybe… it’s now we have more to talk.” He smiled, sadly as he sounded, it stole the right of his mind to function. Castiel let that smile burn his eyes, and in his thoughts he remembered how it felt against his mouth, against his skin. He felt weak and maybe he wasn’t made to fight it, maybe—

No.

“So maybe,” he cleared his throat, annoyed by the tremble in his voice, annoyed with how his body betrayed him with just Dean’s sight a few feet ahead, “Maybe four years from now we’ll have even more to talk. We should talk then.”

“Cas, please,” And Castiel froze, midway thought about finally shutting the door and letting him gone as he was gone forever not a month ago. The sound of that name, that nickname, rolling out that tongue made him stop, because that was how he dreamt about waking up only to find an empty bed and it wasn’t fair. “I just wanna talk.”

“That usually doesn’t go very well for me.”

Castiel suddenly was flashed with the urge to just go away. To run out of the building and run, run as fast as he could, but Dean was just in front of him blocking the way, and the only escape he had was to turn back and close the door. That much seemed to be pretty clear in his face, his eyes and body, because on the second after he stepped back, he felt fingers in his arm and the warm hand carried a fire that lighted his cells. Dean must had felt, it was impossible not to feel the pulse under his palm coming alive, reckless and desperate, Castiel’s own blood trying to show Dean how much he missed that touch.

It was as if he was never alive until then, as if just under that hands all the fog in the world went away.

He watched despair on the green eyes but maybe it was just his own reflect there.

“Please don’t shut me out, Cas,” He whispered, not moving a single finger from Castiel’s skin, “Please—“

“You did it.” And it was like now he wasn’t himself anymore. Castiel was floating behind, watching the scene, and in his place came a clone drunk in sadness and rage, hating how in the world his senses still recognized Dean, still _wanted_ him. And that was what made him pull his arm free. “You were a coward, running from me, _ignoring_ me. All the calls, all the messages. Nothing, Dean. Not even a goodbye!” He felt the heat rising in his face, the pain suffocating his lungs, and after so long he was sure he would cry for him again. “After all, you looked into my eyes and said you felt nothing when I loved you, you ran from me when I tried to reach you, and you left me alone when I promised I never, ever would leave you. You never looked back, not once.” He licked the salt in his lips, feeling as defeated as humiliated. “I was begging you to talk to me and now… Now you want to talk? Isn’t it a bit late? A bad joke?”

And Dean stood in silence, looking astonished as if he lost all his cards on the floor and couldn’t for the life of him look for it. It blew something fresh in his chest, that look of someone who was caught off guard— someone who was used to the always calm and docile Cas. The Cas that would always have Dean back, no matter how big he messed up.

“I was scared,” he stated in a whisper, as if it was the answer to all the ruins in the world. “I never had it— I never had somebody offering me something so— _Cas_ , I was scared shitless and it—“

“You never thought I was scared too?” Castiel breathed, and gave up on ignoring his tears, wiping his face and shaking his head. “I was but it never stopped me. I was ready to give you everything I had and you have no idea how—“ and his voice was gone, his hand covering his gasp, as if only to remember was enough to bring all the pain alive again. And it was. The sound of a door closing down on the hallway broke the spell not a second after and he knew, he just knew he had to get away or he wouldn’t get himself together. It was ridiculous, him crying for a broken heart that never healed in the porch of his door, where his neighbors could watch what was reserved for himself. “I have to go.” He announced between his steps back, grabbing the door, and again he was stopped by the same hand— now however Dean pulled him and Castiel felt himself colliding to a broad chest, face deep in his neck. The resistance went for less than a minute – how could he resist any longer when he was _breathing_ him? – and not half a second after he broke in a cry. He couldn’t get a hold of his senses; his hands reached for him, gripping anything they could find, the sobbing loud and alive and why, _why, why_.

“I missed you so fucking much. I missed you and I still do,” Dean whispered along Castiel’s temple, spreading shivers and stealing air. “And I loved you, I swear, I loved you every second and I still do. I wished every day that I kept my damn mouth shut, that I never hurt you, that I swallowed my damn fears instead of throwing them on you. I prayed for the strength to let you go once for all but I couldn’t and I still can’t.”

“I hate you.” The words sounded lost in Dean’s chest as if hiding could make them less of a lie, and his arms only held him stronger.

“I’m sorry,” and the hug was gone, replaced by the hands holding Castiel’s face, searching his eyes with pools of tears. “Forgive me, just one more time, please. I’m just a fuck up who didn’t know how to love. Don't I deserve a chance to make things right?”

“Dean...”

He stopped him with the shake of his head, thumbs trailing the tracks of salt in Castiel's cheeks. “Please, Cas. I’ll do it all again. Just give me one more chance, I’ll do everything for you to love me again, anything it takes— Just please, _please_ one more chance…”

The silence that followed his words dried Castie’s throat, and he never dared to look away, even with the blurriness of his sight coming and going with the waves of his tears. Dean waited as if any air could break him, but it was Castiel’s head throbbing in pain with the weight of the choice. That choice right there could lend another years of TV reruns and excuses for thinking about someone he swore he wouldn’t, for swallowing memories with sleepless nights; but that choice could too made him glue his heart with a hope only to be ripped apart again. And was it worth it? For all that could take to give Dean all his trust again, for all that he would have to face to close that four year hole from then and now— that empty space forever shaped with Dean’s mind and colors finally gone could pay it?

Dean’s arms lost its strength when Castiel pulled back, sniffing and wiping his face once again, pulling breaths as if he was under water. He watched the taller man tremble, expecting anything besides the silence, and Castiel thought he deserved it— he deserved the torture of the silence that he gave Castiel and he was in no rush to stop it.

“I don’t believe you,” he muttered, at least, watching Dean's face fall, “I don’t believe that after so long you came here to redeem yourself and— for how long? For how long until you decide you’re scared again?”

“What can I do if I’m a stupid bastard?” he blurted, exasperation longing his words and his hands, those hands that could mold the grace in the world pulling the strands of blonde hair, scrubbing the beautiful, beautiful face, offering open palms— submitted, undecided and desperate. “What I have to do to make you believe me? I’ll do whatever it takes, Cas, I can scream for the whole world how stupid, _stupid_ and sorry I am, how much I love you, you know I will.”

“Dean…”

“I love you!” He shouted, open arms, the words echoing on the hall as much as echoed on Castiel’s head, “I love you and your neighbors now know it, and the world will know it, because I’ll say louder and louder till you hear me. They’ll know that I can’t stand another a day, not even another minute without you, that…” he gulped, voice wavering weak, “That I can’t live with my stupid mistake that made us apart anymore.”

And that was it, the death of the common sense and tiniest bit of pride that refused his head to wrap itself around in anything but a no. That was the second Castiel knew his heart was broken but still the boss of him; and it never ever would say no to Dean. His hands were moving without his consent, gripping the old leather jacket and pulling its owner; his head screamed, _fuck it fuck it_ , and he crushed his lips in a strength that was almost violent, tasting longing and tears and so, so much desperation of what could have been, yearning of what they would make be now.

“I hate… Hate… That I could never say no to you.” He whispered between new kisses, licking his lips and framing his neck with his hands, not even daring to close his eyes. He wouldn’t fall asleep again. “I hate myself for loving you so much.”

“One day you won’t.” He swore, hands gentle and strong rubbing lines in Castiel’s waist. And any place that wasn’t his arms seemed too wrong, and all the wrongs of the past or future seemed so small he crushed them at his feet, because Dean was right there and it made him not scared of waking up another day. “One day you’ll scream to the world with me.”

“You’ve been always the world to me.”

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Uhhh I'm kinda in love with Castiel but that's nothing new.  
> Comments and kuddos makes me very happy. <3


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